Lubbock History, Texas

The county of Lubbock was founded by the confederates in 1876. It was named for a confederate colonel Thomas Saltus Lubbock. In 1884, there was a post office in Lubbock. The town of Lubbock was founded in 1890 when Old Lubbock and Monterey joined together and formed the town of Lubbock. It was a strange merger, because they kept the name from Lubbock but the town from Monterey.

Townspeople from Old Lubbock had to move from their homes to Monterey. They even took a hotel named Nicolette Hotel on wheels through a canyon. In 1891, they made Lubbock the county seat. Lubbock grew in size and it was reincorporated as a city in 1891. In 1923, the first major college to open in Lubbock was the Texas Technological College.

There is a landmark called Lubbock Lake, It is an archaeological landmark. It has a history of human inhabitation almost twelve thousand years ago. The exhibit is a part of the Museum of Texas Tech University. There is another part of it that deals with ranch homes and shows how they developed and formed over the years.

In 1951, Lubbock became famous for the Lubbock lights. They were a v-shaped form of lights in the sky. It was given credence at the time because they were witnessed by a number of science professors and other people. A science student even photographed them. Lubbock was in the center of this phenomenon.

The lights, even though seen and photographed, were dismissed by the Air Force’s Project Bluebook as being reflections from moths lighted up by Lubbock’s street lights. Because a real photo existed, they could not call the event a hoax so they found another explanation for it. They said the underside of their wings glowed, but there are many researchers that dispute that.

In 1970, a major tornado hit the city of Lubbock and wreaked havoc there. 26 people died there. The mayor and the city council were left with the task of rebuilding the city.

Lubbock has seen wars and it has seen change but one thing has not changed: the spirit of Lubbock stays the same through all these upheavals.